Aaron,
I think you have a point,the poor image suggests an
authenticity through 'presence'. What is interesting
is that this is something that i would say was media
other than the television news, particularly cinema
and the net. The 'haptic', sensory quality is in
itself an authenticating rhetoric (Laura Marks''Skin
of the Film' is great for this debate).
Basically, what traditionally evoked a fidelity of
information, a truthfulness, to the news seemed to me
to be the voice of the reporter (very important if you
consider the RP voice training BBC reporters
conventionally receive) and the clarity of image.
Recently, significantly poorer images seem to connote
authenticity with entirely different means, and the
extensive use of scrolling text seems to act as an
associative 'anchor' which grounds the dynamically
variable quality of image.
Of course in some respects we have been prepared for
this through the aesthetic of 'reality' television
like big brother etc.
truthfulness of image need not be linked to a clarity
of image, but rather on the foregrounding of the
technology. For instance, at the beginning of any
reality tv show we a let in on the locating and
installation of the cameras, likewise videophone news
in introduced as such, 'a satellite link from...' or
'a videophone message from...' -- there is a registry
of the means of production. And a recognition of the
limits of the image as different from other kinds of
presentation.
cheers
David GS
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